


Soul Sand Valley

by Kov_SR



Series: Minecraft One-Shots [2]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: And During a Writing Marathon, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Nether Update
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:00:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25726285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kov_SR/pseuds/Kov_SR
Summary: They can destroy each other, eat each other alive with a vengeance.She wonders if they can hit a reset button like she can.
Series: Minecraft One-Shots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1867576
Kudos: 10





	Soul Sand Valley

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote too many stories in record time during the writing marathon. This is another story I liked enough to post.
> 
> The Nether update was the only inspiration that kept me writing when I had no other ideas.

The second the flint and steel touch the dark obsidian frame, it explodes in light, its maw gaping open to reveal glowing innards that conceal the true nature of what lies beyond it. The player has long since grown impassionate to the excitement of this milestone, instead choosing to count her arrows and ready her shield to suppress the icy shiver that runs down her spine at the very suddenly near and real prospect of death in Hell.

With her inventory set and her armor polished – all iron, save for the golden helmet that adorns her head like a crown – the player mentally prepares herself for whatever could lie beyond the portal.

No matter how many times she has been there, she is still of the Overworld: she is not suited for the Nether, and the Nether is not suited for her. They can both destroy each other, eat each other alive with a vengeance; although the player will admit that in the beginning, she is the one who is the more vulnerable prey.

With nobody on her side except her weapons and the wariness that has kept her alive for world after world on end, she steps into the gaping jaws of the portal, feeling its glowing saliva drench over her as she is warped and twisted until it spits her out of the other side into a most unforgiving world. The player heaves for a moment as her own body begins to fight against her, glad for the prior experience that told her not to eat anything – the portal journey is always brutal on her body, no matter how strong she may be.

Once the player manages to calm her spasming frame, she stands up and examines her surroundings, glad that the portal was kind enough to not drop her into the lake of lava that stares at her from below the cliff she had just been laying on. She is on the edge of a soul sand valley, adorned with sad blue fires and the fossils of once-magnificent creatures stretching as far as her eyes can see – which, unfortunately, is not very far, due to the blue haze that covers the biome. She hears wailing from far off – ghasts, doomed to wander the valleys forever, crying for souls that they ached for, a desire that drove them mad until they only wished to steal another’s from their body.

 _However,_ she muses as she hears the whispers of bones, _the ghasts are simply the vocal minority here._

As she trudges through the valley, the inhabitants of the soil and the sand reach up with invisible hands wanting to drag her down with them, forever, into the eternal misery that the entire biome is cursed to wallow in. The player learned many lifetimes ago to pay them no heed – her own energy and frustration will feed theirs, and they will drink it from her until she is nothing more than another walking skeleton that has been doomed to this hellscape.

And so she walks, ignoring the way exhaustion begins to crawl into her bones a little too early, and the way the skeletons side-eye her with a jaded form of pity before they turn on her in an attempt to end her suffering.

Although the skeletons are too far gone to tell, she pities them too, she thinks, staring at the decapitated forms of too many bodies, too many souls that she has finally put to eternal rest.

She wonders if they can hit a reset button too.

**Author's Note:**

> Critique is appreciated!


End file.
